Living in a large country can lead to a certain kind of political blindness. Everything significant appears to occur here, inside these boundaries, and during this news cycle. Most of the rest of the world is just background noise. Even though that blindness is comfortable and persistent, it might be causing irreversible harm to the planet.
Most American households responded to Brazilians’ election of Jair Bolsonaro in October 2018 with a response that ranged from mild curiosity to total indifference. a patriot. a former captain in the army. It’s interesting that the press was already referring to him as the “tropical Trump.” However, Brazil seemed far away. The Amazon seemed even further away.
However, standing that far away is a miscalculation that merits investigation. Currently, no human technology can match the Amazon rainforest’s capacity to absorb carbon dioxide. It controls rainfall patterns that extend far beyond South America. For a long time, researchers have compared the area to a type of planetary thermostat, one that doesn’t just reset when it breaks. Bolsonaro’s platform posed a threat to more than just trees. By threatening to reverse environmental licensing, dismantle the ministry of environment, do away with indigenous reserves, and completely withdraw Brazil from the Paris climate agreement, it put that entire mechanism in jeopardy. According to some studies, his policies would cause the already rising rate of deforestation to almost triple.
Bolsonaro’s stated agenda, according to Rachel Garrett, a researcher at Boston University who studied Brazil’s agricultural and environmental policy intersection for about ten years, is as straightforward as it gets: lessen the penalties for deforestation, eliminate protections for indigenous lands, and undermine the very organizations in charge of enforcing environmental crimes. This election may have had more direct effects on global carbon levels than any other recent election. However, it hardly made an impression on American political discourse.
The environmental argument was available to Brazilian voters, and some of them were moved by it, which is part of what makes this so frustrating—and it is frustrating to watch this unfold. Even its own researchers were taken aback by the findings of a study looking at the 2022 Brazilian presidential election: environmental concerns did, in fact, subtly and persistently affect voter behavior, even after controlling for age, religious affiliation, and economic anxieties. Voters were significantly more inclined to back candidates they identified as defending the Amazon if they believed it to be a real problem. That is not insignificant. In fact, that’s a signal to be aware of.
Salience is the issue. Most people stop making decisions when a problem is hidden behind crime statistics and economic collapse, as was the case with Brazil’s economy. In 2014, 21% of voters supported former environment minister Marina Silva; by 2018, that number had dropped to an astonishing 1%. During that same period, public concern over natural resources fell precipitously. Bolsonaro, meanwhile, won over a sizable portion of the electorate by portraying environmental protections as foreign meddling and a plot by wealthy countries to subjugate Brazilian sovereignty over its own territory. It’s a very persuasive argument. Additionally, it is one that hastens the collapse of the ecosystem.
From a distance, American observers tend to view all of this as a Brazilian issue with Brazilian ramifications. It is worthwhile to directly challenge that framing. Deforestation in the Amazon releases carbon that transcends national boundaries. Agriculture throughout the entire hemisphere is impacted by disturbed rainfall patterns associated with forest loss. The “Beef, Bible and Bullet” caucus, which fervently backed Bolsonaro, is one of the agribusiness groups working to undermine Brazil’s environmental regulations. These groups are deeply ingrained in international supply chains that American consumers interact with on a daily basis.
Environmental consequences always seem abstract until they don’t. Until a supply chain is disrupted by a drought, a coastline is altered by a flood, or an unexpected heat record is broken. The effects of the Brazilian presidential election on the environment are real. They can already be measured. There are statistics on deforestation from Bolsonaro’s administration. There are satellite photos. Whether the political will to address this as a shared global emergency rather than someone else’s domestic policy issue will emerge before the harm is irreversible is still up for debate.
It most likely won’t result from apathy. That much appears to be certain.
